


soften in the spotlight

by lockjawed



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Detroit Red Wings, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Pining, References to Past Zetterberg/Larkin, Romantic Tension, The Bermuda Triangle of Mentorship, Time Travel, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:15:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28846647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lockjawed/pseuds/lockjawed
Summary: "I'll be the fastest thing you've ever seen," Filip says. "Blink, you miss me."
Relationships: Dylan Larkin/Filip Zadina
Comments: 15
Kudos: 40





	soften in the spotlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherrygarden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrygarden/gifts).



> 1\. FOR MY DEAR FRIEND NOURA who shares my love of weird and fucked up dynamix <3  
> 2\. i began this in the 19-20 season, then picked it up again recently, so it essentially takes place in an imaginary season with imaginary lines and mixes some of my favorite wings prospects with the current roster and has no covid. larkin also has not been named captain yet in this fake universe so...its the past and the present but also the future but also its not? dont think too hard or it'll fall apart!  
> 3\. filip zadina is called filip in this while filip hronek is just called hronek, i tried to clearly differentiate between mo (mantha) and mo (moritz seider), good luck, hockey name conventions are hellish LOL  
> 4\. title is from the voxtrot song soft and warm

Filip hasn’t had a lucid dream in a while.

Not that he has them often, but—they’re usually a little less monotonous than this. He wakes up in bed, looks at his phone, and thinks he’s awake until he realizes he’s got a notification for the wrong game popping up on his home screen. He opens chrome and taps over to the season calendar he’s had bookmarked for a while now. They’re all wrong. And the year says 2027. 

Filip rubs his eyes and looks around. He’s still in a hotel room, but it looks like it's been—updated, maybe. A text from Joe flips down at the top of his screen: _morning skate, where r u?_ And then; _if ur not sick, coach is gna fuxking flip._

Filip looks at his car keys on the glossy wood of the nightstand. Gets in the elevator and hits the button for the ground floor, feeling all the space in this dream unfolding out in front of him like one of those toy wooden ladders. A rug coming unrolled. The couple blocks drive to the LCA gives him a vague sense of uncanny valley, but Filip figures it’s all par for the course in the subconscious. Even the staircase down to rink level makes him feel weird.

Filip takes the long way round, passing the press room to check if the team’s gotten on the ice yet. He hears the faint scrape of skates as he approaches, catches a blurry sight of Tyler slowly gliding by the bench from the end of the red glass hall. 

So he really is late, then. Filip turns the corner, making his way towards the locker rooms down the bent corridor, wondering if his dream-self needs his blades sharpened or not.

“Morning,” Filip mumbles when the last stretch of hallway reveals the familiar shape of Dylan Larkin, his back leaned up against the massive logo painted on the wall behind him, but when his eyes focus, what Filip sees makes him stop.

Dylan looks—different, sort of. Older, maybe. Like possibly his hair got darker or he stopped trying to put product in it, and he actually bothered to clean up the lines of his facial hair for once in his life. Filled out in a way that has a kind of sturdiness to it, like an old tree, or a boulder half-buried in the sand. Less baby fat still clinging to his face for dear life. Probably can’t pass for nineteen when he shaves like he used to.

“Z,” Dylan says, pushing up off the wall and reaching for Filip’s arm, grip just above the elbow. Then, with more purpose, “Filip.”

“Uh,” Filip says. Dylan takes a quick look down the corridor, finds it empty, and hauls him towards the Player’s Club. He takes a seat in the nearest half-booth, dragging a chair out from under the table with his foot, and waits for Filip to sit in front of him. 

Filip glances around warily. Sits. Twists his hands together and wedges them between his knees.

“I can’t believe—you’re here,” Dylan says, stilted.

Filip screws his eyebrows together. Weird dream. “Of course I’m here,” he says. He gestures vaguely. "Y'know. Hockey. Practice. Contract."

Dylan scrubs a hand down his face, palm over his smile. “No, it’s just—agh, I'm forgetting. You don’t know anything.”

“I think I know some things,” Filip says defensively.

“Right,” agrees Dylan. “I only meant that—how am I supposed to say this?”

“Say what?”

“This is seven years in the future,” Dylan says. “You’re you, seven years in the past.”

Filip waits for him to laugh, but he doesn’t. Makes a mental note to stop watching sci-fi movies before he goes to sleep at night. “Uh-huh.”

“I know it sounds crazy,” Dylan says. “But you told me it was important that you knew.”

Filip stares at him blankly. Decides to take the bait. “Knew what?” Then, course correcting: “Why?”

Dylan is blushing. Filip’s been around him long enough to know it's not that hard to make him do—Dylan blushes when he’s angry or embarrassed or exhausted or holding something back. “Because you’re going to hate me first,” he says, slightly muffled, covering his face. Filip blinks, like, _huh?_ Dylan tilts his head, eyeing him, biting his lip. “It took me way too long to come around. You were acting so weird. You’re going to love me but first you’re going to hate my guts.”

Filip swallows his saliva. “Um,” he says, then can’t think of anything else. He stares at Dylan. Finds that too intense. Lets his gaze skid down his face and into his neck instead. Squints.

Filip changes the subject. “What’s that?”

Dylan glances down, trying to get a glimpse of what Filip’s looking at. “This?” he says, pulling the collar of his shirt aside. There’s a long scar following the line of his collarbone, the skin pink and white, slightly lumpy and misshapen. “I broke my clavicle.”

Filip stares at it unblinkingly. “When?”

“A year ago? Game against the Avs.”

“Who did it?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“Why? I just give them little checks. No penalties.”

Dylan barks out a laugh. “No.”

“Did it heal nice?”

Dylan smiles again, endeared. “Sort of. Had to get surgery to reset the bone—recovery took two months or so. I have to do PT now, and I lost a little mobility in my shoulder. The screws ache when it’s cold.”

Filip frowns. “This is Michigan. You play ice hockey. It’s always cold.”

Dylan shrugs. “It’s alright.” A glance. “You got very good at massages.” He watches Filip’s face crumble and flush, biting his lip. “Sorry, sorry.”

Filip doesn’t know what to say to that.

“You’re being quiet,” Dylan ventures. “I didn’t think you’d be this agreeable.”

“I just. This is strange. I don’t know what to say.” Filip squints at the floor. “Shouldn't _you_ be freaking out?”

“Mm…no. I knew about today already. Eventually, you told me. About this, I mean.”

“And you believed me?”

“You told me about the clavicle before it happened. And you’re here now, so. Even if I didn’t before, I’d have to, wouldn’t I? You put it into my calendar. Look.” Dylan unlocks his phone and shows the screen, set to the month of October. Filip taps his finger against the date, pulling up an event marked in bright red. _Z-DAY_ , it says. Filip snorts.

“Ok, so where am I?” Filip asks. “The older me, I mean.”

“He faked sick and stayed home. He—you said it would be too weird if you saw each other.” Fair enough. Shouldn’t be surprising that Filip agrees with himself. Dylan gives him a funny look. “Why aren't _you_ freaking out? Don’t you have any questions?”

Filip considers briefly. “Am I still a Red Wing?”

Dylan’s eyes soften instantly. “Yes.”

“Are we any good?”

“Yes.”

“How good?”

“Really.”

“Okay,” Filip says.

“That’s it? Those are your questions?”

Filip blinks at him. “What else matters?”

Dylan gets this look on his face that just—Filip doesn’t know a word for it. The silence stretches and breathes, punctuated by the distant sound of pucks hitting sticks and boards. There’s muffled shouting and laughter on the other side of the wall, down towards the locker room. Dylan glances towards it warily.

This dream is so stupid. He stares at Dylan, still with that nose just begging to be broken. Dylan scratches at his collarbone, like the reminder of its presence is making the old incision itch.

“Can I touch it?” Filip blurts.

“Touch what?”

“Your scar.”

Dylan tips his head and smiles halfway, but he grabs Filip’s hand gently by the wrist and places it along his collarbone. He maneuvers Filip’s fingertips until they’re pressed to the lumpy scar, skimming sideways across its length. “You can feel a screw, right…” Dylan says, searching for it, eyes flicking around like he has to visualize the x-ray backwards in his head, “Here.” He slides Filip’s hand another inch to the right. “And here.”

Filip stares at their hands. Specifically, at the faint tan line on Dylan’s fourth finger. Okay then. Maybe he has some kind of domestic fantasy he’s not aware of. Cool.

Filip runs his hand across Dylan’s shoulder, down his arm. He suddenly wants to crawl on top of him. Wants to kiss him, because he’s never gotten to. Gets that feeling he had when he was seventeen, and just got drafted, couldn't tell if he wanted to be Larkin or fuck him or like, somehow defeat him. Puppy love that got squandered pretty hard after a month in the AHL—mostly ’cause he had other shit to focus on, like, seriously. But it's been simmering on low for awhile now, reducing and reducing into something distilled, something condensed. Hyper-concentrated. 

So; Filip does it. Hardly matters that half the walls in the Player's Club are just see-through glass, this is all a weird ass fantasy. Filip gets both knees onto the leather of the booth and settles into Dylan's lap, tilting his face up with both hands, and kisses him. Open mouthed. Filthy. In a way his mother would be ashamed to know he was capable of.

Dylan’s hands go right under his ass, cupping the backs of his thighs lightly. He smiles against Filip’s lips, tipping his head back out of the kiss. “Hey, hey,” he says quietly. “You’re twenty.”

Filip presses the pad of his thumb to Dylan’s bottom lip, letting his weight drop onto Dylan’s thighs fully. “Doesn’t matter.” He can’t believe he’s getting cock-blocked by his own imagination. He slides his hands down to Dylan’s neck, feels his pulse hammering away beneath his thumb, kicking out a snare drum beat. “So I’m twenty, here you’re thirty, and we’re married. This isn’t real.”

“It is,” Dylan says. 

Filip smoothes the shoulders of Dylan’s t-shirt out, feels like he could fall asleep or wake up at any moment. “Mm, don’t think so. I have many dreams about you. Usually more exciting.”

Dylan looks at him for a long time, letting his hands settle at Filip’s hips. “Well, you told me you wouldn’t believe me.” He reaches for his phone again, typing into google for a moment. He scrolls for a second, then stops. “Okay. I’ll prove it. You’re going to lose the next game—”

“I could have guessed that.”

“You’re going to lose the next game in a shootout. Me, Bert, and Robby are going to miss. Then you’re going to play the Habs. I’ll be out for the first two periods with a migraine and then play in the third. You’ll score once with an assist from Seider.”

“Mo’s getting pulled up?”

“It’s complicated—a few d-men end up on IR in dire circumstances, you know how it gets. Then you’re going to play the Bruins. We win. Don’t laugh, I’m serious. Fabby nearly gets a hat trick but the last goal is recalled as no good. Then I tip your shot in.” He scrolls around for another few seconds. “You’ll get twenty-one minutes and thirty-five seconds of ice time. After that we’ll go back into a six game losing streak.”

“You’re making things up.”

“You don’t have to believe me,” Dylan says, setting his phone down again. His hand creeps beneath the hem of Filip’s t-shirt. “Just know that I’m right.”

“Okay,” Filip allows. “So say you’re right. How do I go back home?”

“Just lay low until morning skate is over. I’ll take you where you need to go. He—you told me that—you?—just need to go to sleep again, and then you’ll wake up in the right tomorrow. Simple. Maybe we’ll go for a drive. You’re always falling asleep in the car.”

“Am not.”

“You are.”

But after practice Dylan just takes him back downtown, because it turns out Filip still has the hotel room key hiding in his back pocket, and at that point it just seemed like the thing to do. Last moment Filip remembers is falling asleep the instant his head hit the pillow, laid atop the covers with Dylan sitting near the headboard, one leg outstretched on the bed in front of him. 

Which is—whatever, a weird way to end a dream, frankly a little too Christopher Nolan’s _Inception_ for Filip’s liking, but it didn’t really feel like a problem until—

“Zadina,” Dylan says. He hooks the toe of his stick around Filip’s ankle, catching just under the shin pads. “Didn’t you wanna practice face offs?”

Filip feels himself flush, watching the rest of the team hop over the boards and hobble down the hallway towards the locker room. He can’t turn around. “Did I say that?”

Dylan laughs. He tugs on his stick, spinning Filip towards him slowly like he’s stood atop a turntable. “Yeah,” he says. “Two days ago. But you weren’t at practice yesterday.”

“I—” Filip starts, confused. “We had a game yesterday.”

“That was two days ago. You missed practice.”

“Yesterday was…?” Filip feels tension gathering between his shoulder blades. “I must’ve...um, sorry.”

“Relax, bud, it wasn’t mandatory. So I just figured; today, then.”

“Okay. Today.”

Dylan takes his helmet off and leaves it on the half-boards, then starts sending stray pucks out towards one of the circles. Filip stares at the back of his head, feeling sweat trickling down the divot of his spine. Dylan glances backwards, like: you coming or what?

Filip can’t do this right now. Not today. Not after—whatever all that was. Yesterday. Seven years from now. He trails Dylan out to the dot. “Shouldn’t we get someone to...drop the puck?”

“Nah,” says Dylan. “We’ll just fix your form right now. It won’t take long, around fifteen minutes? Maybe we can get Bert to drop some pucks for us another time.” He turns around, grabs Filip’s helmet by the visor and tugs it off for him, tucking it under his arm like a football. “Don’t need this. You’ll see better.”

Dylan stands in the ref’s position, flipping a puck up into his hand off the toe of his stick. “Okay, let’s see it.”

Filip bends at the waist slightly. Sweat drips from the tip of his nose onto the ice. It all feels vaguely humiliating, somehow, so he stares at the laces of Dylan’s skates, willing the discomfort off his face and out of his head. Dylan hums, thoughtful.

“Everything here has to go lower,” he says. He makes Filip right himself, holding his stick out in front of him. “You dropped your top hand but not the bottom one, which is the one that really matters.” He taps at Filip’s gloves until he approves of their placements. When Filip drops his posture to get into position again, Dylan pushes down lightly on him, a hand between his shoulder blades. “You should probably get more flexible so you can bend more. It’ll give you a little advantage.”

“Hurts too much. My hip.”

“You asked.”

Filip rests his stick across the tops of his knees, staring at the paint beneath the scratched surface of the ice.

“Ready?”

Filip nods. 

Dylan drops the puck. Filip doesn’t see how this form is supposed to improve anything, because it just feels like he’s about to fall over, but the puck flattens and glides cleanly between his feet and into the corner anyway. Filip lines his skates back up with the restraint marks. Dylan mirrors him, drifting forward at a glacial pace.

“And usually, you can encroach a little. Most refs aren’t gonna call it. McCauley gives me shit sometimes, but doesn’t really kick me out.”

“Oh, so you’re big fancy face off man,” Filip pokes, raising both eyebrows. “Refs let you break all the rules.”

Dylan laughs. “No,” he says. “I’m just saying it’s not magic. And every ref has a different way to drop the puck; some sort of throw it, some don’t even try to make it land on the dot. There’s a learning curve. And so you’ll learn.” He rests his stick across his knees, glancing up through his eyelashes. “Okay, count of three.”

Filip nearly gets his hand caught in the ensuing crossover. His lower back and thighs are starting to hurt.

“Go again,” says Dylan. Taps his stick. “You’re gonna wanna get under me.”

Filip feels his knees pop as he bends down and over. Feels a lot like—submission. Defeated acceptance of his destiny, a kind of fatalism. He looks at Dylan’s collarbones where his jersey is falling away from them; nine cubic inches of smooth skin, unmarred and a little flushed. 

It’s not particularly motivating.

Besides. If Filip says he’s not gonna fall in love with him, he’s not gonna fall in love with him. Right? He won’t. 

  
  


Filip hates losing. Really hates losing at home; how he can feel the energy just go out of the place like that bag of wind in the Odyssey. Shit sucks. It’s always fuckin’ Jarry.

Losing in shootouts is a special kind of hell; long-form public humiliation, gladiator style. It’s not really respectable hockey, but maybe it’s a somewhat respectable way to lose a hockey game, ‘cause who can really blame them? It was almost nice to just sit down and watch the shootout order go by after a third period composed mostly of penalties. Still way too much time on special teams tonight to just end up losing anyway.

Filip files down the hallway off the bench after Gus, dying to get his skates off. In the season they’re having, clawing one point out of any matchup is enough cause for celebration. Tyler’s already putting plans together. “We should go out,” he says to no one in particular. “Fabbs? Mantha? Larkin, don’t make that face, you’re coming.” In the locker room, Tyler puts his hand down atop Filip’s sweaty hair. “Fil’s coming, see?”

Dylan smiles wryly. “Which one?”

“All of ‘em,” Tyler says. “Whole team. This isn’t optional, dude. I just decided.”

Dylan rolls his eyes, relenting and waving Tyler away. 

“Too many Fils,” Filip says awkwardly. He’s Fil, Hronek is Fil, and sometimes Val is Fil too depending on who you ask, and it’s all just convoluted. “Just, call me Z. Everybody does.”

Dylan glances up at him, bent over in his stall and starting to undo his laces. “It makes me think of Hank,” he says, looking back at his feet. “Too weird.”

“You are weird,” Filip retorts. “Many people have the same name.” 

Dylan laughs lightly, pulling his skate off by the heel, going to work at the other. “I guess so. Lots of Dylans in the NHL.”

“Lots of Dylans everywhere,” Filip mutters. Like in his night-sweat inducing, vaguely horny dreams. And in freaky circular timelines, apparently. He supposes there’s McIlrath too, but that's not really the point. Dylan calling him Zadina feels impersonal, which only makes him—angry, he supposes. And then the anger makes him angry, and he knows he’s got childish petulance radiating off him in waves, but he can’t seem to stop himself.

Dylan pulls his jersey off.

Filip sighs. “Look, on the power play. I don’t know if you are talking to Hronek or me. Just call me something else, okay? It’s confusing.”

The first camera walks into the room. Dylan wipes his face with a towel, then tugs his elbow pads off. “You were good on special teams tonight,” he says, changing the subject. Glances at the incoming media. Filip could just—he doesn’t really know what. “Better run if you don’t wanna say anything.”

  
  


Filip gets roped into going out for real. He has the sneaking suspicion the joint was picked specifically with him in mind; Brakeman is technically a bar, but they’ll let anyone in, and the bouncer is never at the door anyway. They use a token system for the beer, so it’s pretty easy to get someone else to grab one. Filip still thinks it's fucked up that he isn't legally allowed to drink in this weird-ass, backwards country, but—whatever. 

He doesn’t get a wristband, but Sam puts down some serious cash at the token booth, and he just left them all over the tabletop. Filip sent Gus up to the taps for him again just in case, but Gus just gets distracted at the counter watching the last fifteen minutes of some Oilers game.

Filip’s watching over the buzzer for the food order everyone badgered Mantha into placing, picking at the scratches etched into the wooden bench he’s sitting on. It’s Wednesday night, so the place is practically dead, but the team fills it enough to create a low hum. He can smell the meal as it comes together over in the kitchen, a pleasant mix of honey, fried batter, and cayenne. Almost sickly with how saccharine it is.

Gus sets two glasses on the table. “Cheers,” he says, swinging a leg over the opposite bench, knocking one pint so hard it nearly spills over. He grins at Filip over the rim of the cup. “To your first broken law of the night.”

“Don’t say that. We’ll get bad mojo.”

“We might jaywalk later,” Gus says, faux-serious. “I’m manifesting.”

And then a ping pong ball hits Filip square in the back of the head. He turns around in his seat, pulling a face.

“Sorry!” Tyler shouts, high pitched over the swell of Dylan’s laughter. Filip picks the ball up off the concrete flooring before it starts rolling away and tosses it back onto their abnormally long table, covered in red solo cups.

“Sorry!” Dylan echoes.

Filip rolls his eyes. Dylan’s easy to get drunk—he’s competitive, and Tyler likes messing with him. Well, everyone likes messing with him, which is part of what makes it so easy. And Brakeman is literally built for beer pong. They'll give you the cups and everything. 

Dylan’s down to two, Tyler’s down to one. It’s a total upset, practically ahistorical.

“Celebrity shot,” Dylan says hazily. “I’m phoning a friend.”

“You chickening out on me, Larkin?” Tyler needles, grinning. “Don’t wanna lose all by yourself?”

“Go die,” says Dylan. He glances around until he spots Filip, then hauls him up and over to the table. “Celebrity shot. Fil, let’s go.”

Tyler lifts an eyebrow. “Z, you ever even played beer pong before?”

Filip shrugs. “Um, not really.”

Tyler starts cackling. Dylan puts his hands on Filip’s shoulders and squeezes, like a coach in the corner of a boxing ring. Tyler tosses him the orange ping pong ball. 

Filip lines up his shot, feeling like he has no idea how seriously he should be taking this. 

“Watch that elbow,” Dylan says. His breath, fanning hot against the juncture of Filip’s shoulder and neck, carries the vague, malty smell of beer. “Don’t get disqualified.”

The ball lands cleanly in the last cup, the beer splashing up onto the table. Dylan whoops and jumps on his back, has him in half a headlock. Filip laughs, hands in the air. 

“Eh, beginner’s luck,” complains Tyler. He gives Filip the evil eye as he downs the last of the beer.

Dylan hops back to the ground, mussing Filip’s hair. Up close, his eyes are glassy, and he’s flushed like they’ve just finished a long session of bag skates. Definitely drunk. “I wanna do something else.” He squints across the bar. “You guys got Jenga in Czechoslovakia?”

“It’s the Czech Republic now,” Filip says flatly. “And of course we do. It’s Jenga.”

It’s dirty bar Jenga, of course. Truths and dares scribbled onto the pieces, the occasional phone-number or twitter handle. Dylan takes his time, constructing the tower with a frankly unnecessary level of precision, each side lined up neatly, perfectly parallel. 

“You first,” Dylan says.

Filip starts off easy; a center block about halfway down. It tells him to eat a handful of salt in scratchy black writing, his reaction to which draws the attention of Gus and Merrill, then has to admit his favorite sex position after Dylan’s block doesn’t have anything but a water damaged smudge of purple sharpie on it. Dylan bows out of taking his pants off and is forced to take a shot that Hronek brings over, because even tipsy, he knows pictures of that could not surface on the internet, like, ever. Filip pulls the dare to go bottoms up on his glass. Dylan nudges a block out from the side, has more than half the stack resting on a single middle block.

“Lick someone’s face,” he reads, eyebrows lifting. He looks at Filip. “You showered, right?”

“Of course I showered,” Filip says quickly. The beer is starting to hit him. “Who isn’t showering after a game like that?”

Dylan smiles, flimsy. “Just asking.” Starts laughing. “Come here.”

Filip doesn’t move. Dylan puts one hand on the back of Filip’s head, the other along his jaw, and tilts his head up. His tongue drags from Filip’s mandible all the way up to his temple, and Filip flushes, glancing out at Hronek and Lindstrom looking on in disgusted amusement. Dylan’s laughing in his ear, for a second, and then he’s back on the other side of the table.

“You taste like soap,” Dylan says simply, wrinkling his nose. He takes a sip from his own cup.

Filip slides a precarious block out from the center of the stack, betting on counterweight. “When’s the last time you masturbated,” he reads flatly. He should seriously just drink, right? His teammates probably don’t want to know this. Lindy’s cringing already, and Hronek’s covering his ears, but Dylan’s just looking at him. Watery blue eyes. “Last night,” Filip says.

“Dude,” Merrill groans.

“What!” Filip laughs. 

Dylan swallows and takes an easy block, third down from the top. It’s upside down, so Filip sees the dare scrawled in black sharpie before he does. _Kiss an opponent_ , the handwriting says.

Filip kicks a leg of the table and knocks the jenga tower over. Smiles as inconspicuously as he can. “You lose,” he says.

  
  


The team gets Monday off, but Filip still has to pack for the road game in Montreal. He didn’t close the curtains last night, and the sun’s shining so hard through the window that the carpet is nearly white, dust floating in the air.

Filip’s hotel room is messy and starting to get a little bit insanity-inducing. Management put him up at the RenCen downtown, which is much nicer than anything he would’ve sprung for himself, but it doesn’t stop the walls and the carpet and the couch from all being eyesore gray, the sheets from being uncomfortably starchy.

Even with Mo right across the hall, every day makes him feel weird and more isolated about the whole thing. Most of the team doesn’t even live in the city. And he’s had the Do Not Disturb sign hanging from the doorknob for nearly two weeks now, even though he probably needs new towels.

In bed, Filip rolls onto his back and looks sideways at his suitcase open on the floor, currently in a confusing state of limbo; partially emptied into the hotel closet, and half-packed for the short trip tomorrow. Then he huffs, indecisive.

He’s aware that it wouldn’t take a genius to guess that they were going to lose the last game. That had, like, predictable inevitability. Could have been a statistics problem in a secondary school textbook, easy. Even the shootout order wasn’t saying much when Blashill’s been using the same three people for a couple seasons now. It would probably be stupid to start taking everything else future-Dylan said into account. Insane, even. And yet, Filip still feels like he isn’t done packing.

He slides out of the bed and starts digging through the dresser, dark wood drawers scraping unpleasantly on their rollers. He swears it's in here. He and Mo went back to Grand Rapids five separate times over the course of training camp, and now at least half his apartment is scattered across this room. So; statistics. It’s probably in here. Filip opens the last drawer, bottom right.

Bingo.

It’s one of those rice filled heating pads that his mother made him bring when he first moved to the States, the kind that always smells a little bit off putting, like tea that's been left in the cupboard too long. Filip’s never really used it for much. Sometimes he just nukes it, puts it on his stomach, and goes to sleep because it feels nice; like how he imagines lizards laying on sunny rocks might. 

Filip picks it up. It’s way heavier than he remembers. 

Into the suitcase it goes.

  
  


They’re not getting crushed. Tatar nets two on Bernier early in the beginning of the first, but Filip isn’t panicking. At this point, that's their usual M.O. They’ll get it back, probably. The lines are just weird right now, and they need to get used to it. Five more minutes and it’s on. 

Earlier, Filip watched with mildly horrified interest as Dylan tried to sleep on the short flight to Montreal. Mostly, he just kept furrowing his eyebrows and pinching at the bridge of his nose, carefully pressing his knuckles into his orbital bones until he finally just closed the shade on the window. Next to him, Tyler played slapjack with Anthony and Robby as quietly as humanly possible, hushed snickering every time Tyler’s ring caught Robby on the knuckles. Dylan skated in the morning, but he was slow and laborious about it, stopping to drink water way more than usual. When Filip asked, he said he had a migraine. And then he threw up in the trashcan next to the door of the locker room, so. Now the lines are fucked up, shifted to mold around the shape of his absence. Grand piano, missing key.

It’s not fun hockey. They’re getting trapped in the corners, caught in the neutral zone, called for stupid penalties. Some defenseman keeps trying to launch Filip into the Habs bench just for the hell of it. The second he finally manages it, Robby scores one of those bullshit, pinball style goals while Filip’s still facedown in Shea Weber’s lap. They practically throw him back out onto the ice like an undersized fish. The clip is still replaying on the jumbotron when the buzzer sounds off a full minute later, ending the first period.

  
  


Even during intermission, Bell Centre rumbles with a sort of white noise. It disappears if Filip doesn’t focus on it. He gets turned around twice on his way to the trainer’s room, and has to ask the first staff member he sees to redirect him. He knocks twice, lightly, then opens the door, peering past the edge before walking in.

Dylan’s half asleep on one of the exam tables—the flat one with the fancy headrest. He’s got an arm up over his face, covering his eyes even with the lights all dimmed. The walls are striped with the dull red and blue of the Canadiens. “I’ve brought you something,” Filip whispers. He feels bad about how loud the handle for the door is.

Dylan doesn’t move. “I hope it’s not Tylenol,” he says. “Don’t think it’s safe for me to take another one.”

“Better than Tylenol.” Filip feels stupid and clunky, still pink in the face from exertion, standing there fully suited sans helmet, handing Dylan Larkin what is essentially a hot bag of rice in an old towel. He hovers at the end of the exam table, unable to hear the roar of the crowd anymore. “Sit up.”

Dylan strains up onto his elbows, brows furrowed, then onto his hands. Filip holds out the heating pad, hanging from his fingers by one of two velcro straps. He’s just pulled it from the microwave in the lounge Blashill directed him to, can feel the heat it’s giving off radiating up onto his arm even through the elbow pad. 

“Careful,” Filip says. “It’s very hot.”

Dylan takes it from him gingerly,

“You can do…” Filip says, gesturing vaguely, “on the neck, or forehead. With the sticky things.”

Dylan wraps it around his head like a sweatband from the 80’s, and lays back down heavily, exhausted already.

“You look stupid,” Filip says. Long pause. Dylan bends one knee up, stretches his arms out behind his head, like the migraine is in his whole body, smiles lightly like he’s going to laugh and then doesn't. “Someone will probably have to throw it in the microwave again in five minutes.” Filip goes to the door but he doesn’t know how to leave. “Ok, I’m going,” he says.

“Fil,” Dylan says. When Filip turns to look at him, he’s lifted the heating pad off one eye and is squinting at him hard. “Thanks.”

Filip keeps his hand on the doorknob. “Um, right,” he replies stupidly. He feels like he should be saluting Dylan or something. “Yes. Bye.”

  
  


The second period passes without much incident. The score stays deadlocked, and Filip sweats out the last intermission tying and untying the laces on his skates, very purposefully not thinking about anything. Coach mixes up the lines again, looking for combinations that click a little cleaner.

Robby’s wrister ricochets off Tyler’s skate, knocking the blade loose with a sharp burst of crisp, plasticy noise. The puck skids out to Mo’s stick at the blue line, and he stalls long enough—playing keep away with Gus along the boards—for Tyler to make it back to the bench for a change. Filip listens to the sound of the gate latching closed again somewhere in his blind spot, the scratch of skates approaching. 

Mo’s pass skids right into Filip’s wheelhouse, perfectly flat, bottom of the circle, fast enough to leave the nearest corners of the net wide open; five inches like it’s five fucking miles, Filip’s vision clearing out like a rifle sight. He one-times it over Price’s shoulder, untouched even through the mess of bodies collecting in the crease. The goal horn blares, drowning out the crowd. Filip gets tackled immediately from behind, pitching forward, then sideways as Mo crashes into him. Robby jumps into the huddle.

“Larkin,” Robby says, shaking Filip around with a loose grip in the collar of his jersey, but grinning at Dylan hanging over his shoulder. “Can’t believe you’re alive.” He pushes Filip in the chest, energized, finally meets his eyes. “Broke the sound barrier on that slapper, Z.”

“Fuckin’ beaut,” Dylan says. His gloved hand drops from atop Filip’s helmet to his shoulder, down to the center of his back. 

Filip looks sideways at him. “The wonders of Tylenol,” he supplies.

Dylan shakes his head, pressing their helmets together. “Tylenol’s total garbage. You’re a lifesaver, man.”

Filip looks straight into Dylan’s eyes, trying to focus through the red and white glare reflecting in the plastic. Allows himself this tiny act of self destruction. “Fuck the Habs.”

Dylan laughs, bright and clear. “Fuck the Habs.”

  
  


Dylan takes the empty seat across from him as the plane rumbles out onto the tarmac, overhead bins creaking. Filip heard Merrill lost their room key. Definitely seems like they had to schmooze the front desk workers a little so they could leave and get away with it. Merrill hunkers down in the back row, headphones slung around his neck, and the standard travel hush descends over the cabin.

Filip kicks his feet out of his slides and sets them up on Dylan’s lap, crossed at the ankle, resting just above his knee. 

Dylan doesn’t glance up from his phone and presses his thumb sharply into the ball of Filip’s foot, finding a pressure point, snickering. Filip flinches and sucks in air through his teeth, making a pained face at him, but settles in the same spot, slouched in the seat cushions. Dylan cracks his toes with the heel of his hand, bending them inwards, eyeing Filip with mild delight as he yelps, squirming, and retracts his legs altogether.

“Asshole,” Filip says decisively, rubbing at his instep before shoving his feet back into his shoes.

“You put ‘em there,” Dylan says. “Not my fault.”

“My feet are cold,” Filip complains.

Dylan shrugs. “Wear real shoes.”

“You’re so lame.”

“I promised Yzerman I’d look after you. All of you.”

“Then he’s lame, too.”

“Want me to tell him you said that?”

“No,” Filip replies, making a face. 

The flight attendant comes around with hot towels and tiny red bags of pretzels. Dylan presses his face into the cloth, then throws his pretzels across the aisle at Bobby. Filip puts his headphones on and watches the clouds creep by out the window.

By the time Filip bores of that, Dylan’s half asleep. When he kicks his feet back up, Dylan just cracks one eye, and tucks them in between his thigh and the armrest. Doesn’t move, even when the plane is landing.

  
  


“I think we win,” Filip says. 

Moritz makes a face at him. “You are crazy. The Bruins?” He tucks his gloves into his pants, standing. “Smitty,” he calls across the dressing room. “Z says we win.”

Givani laughs. “Ok. Then we’re winning.”

Moritz grabs the cuff of his glove and smacks Filip over the head with it, patting him. “Look at that. Winning is so easy.”

“Oh, to be young again,” Robby sighs wistfully, trailing by, only half his uniform on.

“If you’re old, I’m old,” Dylan says, shoving Robby in the back. “We’re not old,” he says, looking at Tyler. “Are we?”

“You’re not old,” Filip says. “You’re young like us. Glenny’s old. Danny too. And coach.”

Robby busts out laughing. “Oh, Z, pick your battles, dude.”

Dylan bites down his smile. He loves Danny, and Glenny. Not coach, obviously. “Well, I’m older than you. Both of you.”

“Not by that much,” Filip says. He can’t stop himself from saying it. “We could have been in school together.” Moritz glances at him sideways, making a face. He knows Filip too well. 

“Z thinks we’re gonna win,” Moritz says, batting his eyelashes. Filip elbows him hard in the ribs. Blashill hovers in the doorway, irritated by how slowly they’re dressing for warmups. 

“That’s the spirit,” says Dylan. He has the exact tone and cadence of a peewee baseball coach, doomed with a team destined to never make it off home plate.

Tyler looks up from where he’s digging around in his stall, bent over his equipment bag. “Jesus,” he says, face wrinkling. “You _are_ old. Like, spiritually.”

  
  


The goal is a total beauty. Filip does serious damage to the ice on a slapshot that rockets unchallenged towards the top right corner, has Rask up off his knees. It’s like the five-hole is opening up in slow motion. Dylan fights to get his stick out in front of Chara’s, and the tip is textbook—deserves to be put in an educational video, it's that clean.

The puck ricochets down and bounces cleanly between Rask’s goalie pads, momentum straining the back of the net. There’s an explosion of sound in the arena. The floods go down and the spotlights go up; first on Dylan, then on Filip. Dylan skates into him, shoving him against the boards. He nearly knocks Filip’s helmet off with sheer velocity. 

It seems to take eons for the rest of the line to skate over, Dylan’s arm around his back, hand high on his ribcage, tight under his arm. It's hard to feel excited when he’s half horrified at the way everything is coming together, but he manages it, swept up in the high. He wonders at his ice time as he skates by the bench, knocking knuckles with the team, but forgets the worry by the time the puck drops again. They’re winning, right? So why worry. They’re winning.

  
  


Filip undresses and redresses slowly. He sits in his stall without his shoes on and scrolls through his footage on an iPad, wincing faintly at all his mistakes chronologically ordered and compiled neatly together. He forces his eyes to refocus when he makes it to the stats sheet. He trails down the list of forwards to his name. Looks at the ice time. 21:35. Right. Okay. Fine.

Looking at tiny numbers on an iPad shouldn’t feel so crushing when everything else future-Dylan said had already come true, but Filip convinced himself he could chalk those things up to a crazy streak of luck. Tonight, though, there were thousands of possibilities for the exact total of his ice time, and future-Dylan had it exactly right. Fucking hell. He’s going to marry the guy. And now he has to run around like he doesn’t know that shit, act like everything’s normal. Filip sets the iPad on the floor at his feet and buries his head in his hands, elbows on his knees. Heaves a big sigh.

The light in the locker room flicks off, and Filip is suddenly illuminated from below in white by the glow of the iPad screen, burning his eyes.

“Ah, sorry,” Dylan says, standing in the doorway, switching the lights back on. “Didn’t think anyone was in here. I’m usually last.”

“It’s okay,” Filip manages. “Have fun. See you tomorrow.”

Dylan puts his hands in his pockets. “Oh, I’m not going out with everyone.” He twists the heel of his shoe against the floor, almost laughing a little. “I know I said I wasn’t old earlier, but honestly I just wanna go home and knock the fuck out.”

Filip looks at Dylan, then the floor, then back again. “Ok. Drive safe. Icy roads, right?”

Dylan doesn’t make any move to leave. He smiles halfway, eyebrows knotting closer together. “Hey, uh. Are you okay?” he says carefully, hiking his bag higher up his shoulder. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, trying to seem casual. He’s really good at the pseudo-captain thing. "You've seemed kind of off lately."

"Am I playing bad?" Filip asks, horrified. 

"No! No, I just meant, like, you, uh, in general."

“I’m not…sleeping good, lately. Having weird dreams, that’s all.”

Dylan tilts his head a little, staring at him. Filip feels like he’s covered in fire ants. “You’re playing well. Today was a great game. I like it—having you on my wing.”

Filip smiles weakly. “You play alright. Y’know, not so bad.”

“Gee, don’t lay it on too thick. It might go to my head.”

“Okay, you’re terrible. Worst player in the world. Little fleas could beat you at hockey.”

“No happy mediums for you, huh?”

Filip shakes his head, searching listlessly for a granola bar he’s pretty sure is in the bottom of his bag. The essence of peanut butter and sweat isn’t exactly the ideal aroma to have floating around in his duffel and sinking into his equipment. He really needs to get it out of there. Dylan’s eyes bore into him like a high powered drill.

“Do you have a ride?” Dylan says finally. “You’re still downtown, right? I can take you home.”

Filip blinks. “I carpooled with Mo.” A half-truth. He carpooled with Moritz because they’ve been put up in the same hotel, and they took Filip’s car the ten blocks through the snow. Going back separately is indefensibly lacking in logic, but if he can finesse it, he will. He tipped Mo off that you can usually mooch leftovers off the cooks from the Player’s Club in the post-game. “Stay here. I’ll go tell him not to wait up.”

Filip glances backwards as he heads down the hall towards the automatic doors. The Player’s Club is mostly dark save for the staff behind the counters still finishing the clean up, but he finds Mo at a high top table covered in plates the size of coasters. 

“Want some ravioli?” Moritz says.

Filip shakes his head. When he gets back to his room, he’s gonna order so much room service that it’ll set a world record. “Larkin is driving me home,” he says stiffly.

“Z,” Moritz says, giving him a flat look. “Is that…a thing?”

Filip shoves his keys against Moritz’s chest, eyes wide. “I will tell you all of it. Later. Take my car.”

“Your car is trash,” Mo says, chewing. He pokes a fork aimlessly in the shallow bowl, one eyebrow lifted.

“You didn’t complain when I was giving you a free ride this morning.” Filip digs around in his pockets. “Take five dollars.”

Mo squints. “I’ll take ten.”

“You will take five and I’ll buy you coffee before practice tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” Mo says, grinning. “So kind.”

“I’m going now,” Filip says, walking backwards. “Don’t crash.”

“I’ll crash on purpose,” Mo says. His smile is toothy. “See you.”

“Okay,” Filip says, cracking his knuckles as he walks back into the dressing room. “Mo is good. We can go.” He pulls his jacket on, knowing it's too thin to protect him much from the cold. He’s still running on residual heat from exertion and won’t cool down for another half hour or so.

“Your shoe’s untied,” Dylan says, glancing downwards.

Filip rolls his eyes, but squats down to re-knot the laces. He makes a face up at Dylan. “You really think I can’t make it to the parking garage without falling on my face?”

Dylan lifts a brow, the corners of his mouth tilting up. “Yep, that’s exactly what I think.” 

Filip fumbles the knot, and the laces fall loose again. “Focus,” Dylan says, grinning.

Filip finishes the bow and stands. “Happy?”

“Very.” Dylan spins on his heel and starts walking towards the stairwell. “C’mon.”

Dylan’s car isn't a total shit-show, but it isn’t very flashy either. Filip’s always assumed it was the same set of wheels he probably went to college with, a slightly old Jeep with a chip or two in the windshield. The lights flash as the remote key unlocks it. Dylan throws his bag in the backseat while Filip climbs into the passenger side and leaves his backpack at his feet.

“RenCen, right?” 

“Yeah. Maybe if I get really good they’ll put me up at Shinola.”

Filip fiddles with the heating and the radio, resists the inexplicable urge to throw his feet up on the dash like this scenario feels casual. He twists the vent around, temple against the window. Glances at Dylan surreptitiously. “Does your face hurt?”

Dylan tilts his head towards Filip but keeps his eyes on the road unfolding in front of him, rolling slowly out of the parking garage onto the side street. “Hm?”

“I saw Wagner’s stick clip you a couple times. And had your nose into the boards. No call.”

“It’s fine. Mostly got me in the chin. Bert took care of him.”

“Next time in Boston, you take care of him too.”

“Can’t. It’s a bad look for me.”

Filip shoves his foot underneath his backpack on the floor in front of him, feels the weight of it crushing the toe of his shoe. “I’ll do it then.”

Scattered cars on Woodward clear and Dylan pulls out onto the road. “It’s a bad look for you too.”

“Why?”

“Same reason.” 

“You never said a reason.”

“Do I have to?”

Filip watches the streetlights disappearing backwards in the side mirror. Filip knows: can’t start anything, only finish it. “No.” 

Dylan doesn’t say anything to that.

Filip racks his brain, desperate to keep the conversation from dying. “Why are you always last? You take ten years to get undressed?”

“Postgame comments. Someone’s gotta do ‘em.”

Filip picks at the fabric of the passenger seat. “Right. Mantha says you always ‘face the music.’”

Dylan smiles a little at that. “Music would be nicer.”

Filip looks at him sharply, wanting to roll his eyes. “You’re so—you’re so annoying.”

Dylan barks out a laugh. Filip feels the car lurch lightly beneath them. 

Filip sighs, pulling on a piece of hair that keeps falling between his eyes. “I don’t know a softer word. That’s not the right one.” There’s barely anyone on Woodward, and Downtown has too many lights, but Dylan’s not going to roll through a red. The car slows to a stop, has Filip held to the leather by the momentum and the seatbelt. “It’s like...if there is a wind, you stand in front and block it for us. How when you watch bicycle racing, there is someone everybody is drifting behind.”

Dylan glances at him, furtive. “And that annoys you?”

“Yes.”

Dylan adjusts his hands on the steering wheel, proper ten and two. They pass the Fox, Ford Field, stop for jaywalkers on Grand Circus. “I’ve had people block the wind for me. I thought it was pretty nice back there.”

“I’m not saying it’s not nice, I’m saying it’s annoying.”

“I’m supposed to...I’m supposed to, y’know, be some kind of mentor for you. For all the new rookies. Or something.”

“Nobody asked you to do that.”

“Nobody’s supposed to have to ask.”

Filip huffs. “Well stop. You’re not experienced enough to be my mentor. You were born—what?—five minutes ago? Me, four minutes ago. Like a baby taking care of another baby.”

“Damn. Don’t I at least qualify as a toddler?”

“Sure,” Filip says. His smile cracks. “Still bad practice, though.”

Dylan rakes a hand through his own hair, leaves a few curls sticking up funnily at the back. “Well, if it helps, sometimes I think doing the post game stuff is annoying.”

“Tell them: talk to Filip Zadina. He will give it to you straight.”

“You’d hate it,” Dylan says gently.

“Maybe. Why?”

Dylan chews on the inside of his cheek. “I can’t say what I think because they’ll make me apologize. But then if I don’t say it, I just feel like I’m lying.”

“I think you can say anything.”

“I definitely can’t.” Downtown is fucking dead at night. 

“Like I said. You are very annoying. This isn’t Tour de France. Coach doesn’t even make us do bicycles.” Filip isn’t sure exactly what they’re talking about anymore. Swallows his heart down. “I don’t want you to stand in front of me. I want to be next to you.” Pause. “Next to all of us.”

Dylan looks at him, sidelong. Tinted red in the stoplight, then green. Traffic here is noticeably timed incorrectly. “You can’t,” Dylan says. The engine keeps idling. 

Green, it’s all green. Filip meets his eye, tipping his head towards the road all cleared out before them. Feels his gut ratcheting tighter.

“Focus,” Filip says.

  
  


Monday, practice is a total bitch. Blash only knows how to celebrate victory with punishing speed drills, suicides back and forth across the blue lines. They’re gouging huge ravines into the ice with the repetitive sliding stops, snow spraying outwards in tiny drifts. The zamboni’s probably gonna have to do a couple extra passes to even out the surface when they’re done with it.

Filip’s joints are already starting to ache by the time Coach lets up.

“Run some two-on-ones,” he orders.

Filip queues up at the blue line, but Van Zant calls him over to the bench.

“Should we restart the routine we had you doing during training camp?” he says. “You’re skating a little funny.”

“Ugh,” Filip says. “No.”

“You’re only saying that because it’s a pain, and you never do the stretches. You’ll thank me ten years down the line.” He taps a fist against the half-boards decisively. “I’ll talk to Matt.”

Filip groans, but Piet just laughs at him. He shoos Filip away, towards the cluster of players waiting for the two-on-ones to change, so that he can go back to eyeing anyone for injuries. Joe grabs him by the jersey and nudges him past the blue line. “Take my place,” he says, breathless. “I gotta fix my laces.”

Filip throws his water bottle at him and starts picking up backwards speed. When he finally turns around, he’s staring down a tiny red _71_ on the back of Dylan’s helmet, and barely getting a handle on a drop pass. The shot stays low and sails into Bernier’s pads before he covers it, no rebound. 

“What was that about?” Dylan says, gesturing vaguely towards the bench when they've skated back to the line. He gives Filip a once-over. “You all good?”

“It’s nothing,” Filip mumbles, gaze escaping sideways. He slides forwards slowly as the match-ups switch out again. “Just my leg or something. Van Zant thinks my stride is lopsided. Don’t worry about it.”

Dylan rests his hands atop the butt of his stick, leaning on it. “Wasn’t that giving you trouble in the summer? At training camp?”

“Yeah,” Filip admits. One more set before they’re up again.

“Well, do the damn stretches for once,” Dylan says, his eyes tracking the path of the puck, following Robby and Tyler’s tic-tac-toe. Robby roofs it high over Bernier’s shoulder, backhand.

“Ugh,” Filip complains.

“You’re so stubborn.”

“No, I am strong willed.”

Dylan snorts, then looks at him sideways, expression shrouded. “Y’know, Hank used to have to force me to wear my mouthguard all the time.” He whacks Filip in the back, smiling wide and glittery before he digs his blades into the ice and starts chasing the stray puck. He glances at Filip over his shoulder. “Okay? Don’t make me kick your ass.”

  
  


Filip’s got tight hips, apparently. The trainers have him coming to PT twice a week after practice. Now, he has to just lay there and bear it while his legs get maneuvered into some bullshit called the reverse pigeon until all the nitrogen buildup in the joints pop. It’s fucking unbearable, and sometimes it takes forever.

Hronek chews on a breakfast sandwich, sitting on the other exam table. Filip’s pretty sure Robby has an appointment right now, but he might still be down in the gym. 

“You’re being quiet,” Hronek says. He takes another bite, chewing thoughtfully. “Want your muffin yet?”

“No,” Filip grits. The air bubble feels like it's gonna make his pelvis disintegrate into a million tiny pieces. Matt smiles at him grimly, both arms wrapped around one knee, full weight pressing his leg back.

Hronek leans his weight on one hand. “Want to talk about your problem yet?”

“What problem? I don’t have problems.”

“You definitely have one, that starts with an L and ends with an N.”

“What? No. I mean, how do you—”

“Czech hive mind. I see right through you, okay? Or maybe I’m just not stupid.”

Filip glances at Matt warily, who does an admirable job of pretending to not be listening, and switches into Czech. “Shut up. You don’t know anything.”

“Then why are we speaking Czech?”

“Robby can walk in. I don’t need you giving him wrong ideas.”

Filip’s left hip pops loudly.

“Switch,” Matt says. Filip puts his right ankle over his left knee, feeling the pressure build in the joint again.

Hronek lifts a brow skeptically. “And what is the right idea, then?”

“Nothing. There is no idea.”

“Liar,” Hronek says. “You are so weird around each other. Like every time it’s the first time you’ve met.”

Filip starts getting a foot cramp. “We are not.”

“Disagree.”

“Whatever.” Pause while Matt shifts the angle of his leg a centimeter and the pressure verges on cruel. “I just—I feel like I’ve seen too much. Or, I know too much. You know?”

Hronek chews, considering. “Hm. I guess I always thought Americans were a little more precious about nudity, but—”

Filip suddenly wishes he had accepted the muffin earlier so he could throw it at Hronek’s head. “That is _not_ what I’m talking about.”

“Well. We could talk about it. There’s definitely a lot to discuss.”

“ _Filip_ ,” Filip says. “I mean, yes, I guess, but I’m not—that isn’t—”

“Okay, I’m sorry, it’s very sweet,” Hronek says, peeling the foil away from Filip’s chocolate banana muffin. “So cute. Bringing him the blue from the sky and everything.”

The door opens. 

“Hi, Robby,” Hronek says. English like a smoking gun.

“Hey,” Robby says. “Is Van Zant around? I need him to sign off on my knee or something.”

Matt waves a hand. “He’ll swing by in a minute.”

The door opens again. Hronek stifles his laugh by taking a bite of Filip’s muffin. “Fabbs,” Dylan says, holding the handle. “Bert’s putting a pot on in the lounge. Want coffee?”

Robby hops up on the exam table next to Hronek, grinning and smarmy. “If you’re gonna bring it to me so nicely, yeah.”

“Hronek?”

Hronek lifts the muffin in salute. “I’m good.”

“Is Zadina around?” Dylan asks them. “I meant to catch him before warm-ups.”

Hronek kicks his foot out in the direction of Matt and Filip on the far exam table.

Filip smiles sourly at Dylan when they lock eyes over the slope of Matt’s shoulder, wincing when the stretch is pushed another centimeter further. He feels himself flush for no reason in particular. 

Dylan asks, “How’s the hip?”

“Great,” Filip grits. He’d say the same if all his bones were fucking rotting.

  
  


They’re losing to the Islanders.

It’s a miserable matchup; Hronek goes down with a puck to the face, half the high sticks go without call, and it’s like a game of pinball out in front of Bernier’s net; bodies on bodies on bodies, liable for the shameful own-goal. Even the top line keeps getting boarded like they barely weigh half as much as a middle schooler’s backpack. Even the crowd seems louder than usual.

The pressure is—physical, almost. When the puck jumps onto Filip’s stick, he feels the weight of the winged wheel gathering at the nape of his neck, making his shoulders tight, pulling like a rubber band behind his ears and at the back of his head. His shot sails wide, too wide to even be respectable, rolls along the glass and careens back into the d-zone. He watches Lindy’s shoulders drop with a sigh as he starts skating back. Filip pointedly doesn’t look at the bench as he strides by, quads burning.

Even getting a power play off a too many men call doesn’t bring him any sense of relief. Dylan hops the boards and heads slowly towards the impending face off, the game on pause for a commercial break. Filip watches Dylan’s pads strain away from his lower back as he drops over the hash marks, and lets Barzal shove him around at the edge of the circle because in all honesty, Filip’s distracted. Everything is distracting.

Somewhere far off, Filip knows the loss isn’t all on him, but he feels his mistakes snowballing into something larger, something visible, something anyone could see even from the rafters. He times his shot wrong and fans on it. Skates too fast and gets the game stopped for offsides. Finishes a hit too slow, then misses entirely. 

The ref drops the puck. It’s a one goal game, though by the way they’ve been playing, it doesn’t deserve to be, and there’s seven seconds left on the clock.

Dylan wins the face off. Hronek settles it, passes it along to Filip at the boards. Filip pushes off of Barzal. Nobody’s creating any traffic yet, but Bernier’s tapping out a countdown at the other end of the ice, the sound of his stick resounding against the plexiglass. Filip looks at Dylan fighting to get through two d-men and into the crease. Tries to figure out if he’s doing things too early or too late, if it even matters what he does at all. Shoots too quickly, no screen.

Varlamov barely moves to glove it. Clean save. Easy.

  
  


Filip stays in the showers long enough for his hands to prune up. The dressing room has emptied out by the time he ventures back to it, one towel around his hips, the second slung around his neck, catching the water still dripping from his hair. He sits in his stall, air drying a little. When his arms start prickling with goosebumps, he drops the first and fights his sweatpants on, the cotton sticking to his still-damp skin. Sits down again, feeling all the aches of the game blooming in him.

He digs through his bag to find his shirt, and in the seconds it takes to pull it down over his head, Dylan’s entered the room. He’s just a few stalls over, like always, already dressed but with his hair still wet. He’s shoving his foot into a sneaker, and Filip doesn’t look at him.

“Hey,” Dylan says. He adjusts the heel of his shoe and stands, coming over to Filip. “Sorry. About that shot. I should have been able to get there.”

Filip waves him off, standing to grab his phone where he’s left it next to his gloves on the shelf above him. The stretch makes him wince and give up, pain creeping up his side. “I timed it badly. I should have been more patient.”

“Okay,” Dylan says amicably. “Let’s agree to blame each other.” He reaches over Filip’s shoulder, grabbing the phone for him. “Here.” 

Filip takes his phone, then grabs his skates to hang them on the short rack. He’s too antsy to turn around, so he messes with the laces until they hang neatly, rubs his thumb on a scuff mark at the toe of one boot. He feels a cool drop of water creeping slowly down the nape of his neck, runoff from his hair, and shivers.

Behind him, Dylan reaches up and wipes it away, his hand skimming along to Filip’s shoulder, slow. Like he can't believe he's doing it as he's doing it. Palm warm, fingers calloused and rough. Lingering too long, the collar of Filip's shirt tugged aside.

Filip glances backwards at him and lets the air go clean out of his chest. Gets the same feeling he had in Dylan’s car, a week ago; that they were treading on some great unsayable thing. Dylan looks at Filip’s neck, then his own hand on his shoulder, and finally meets Filip’s gaze. The silence abruptly breaks when the equipment crew comes into the room, starts collecting gloves and jerseys to toss into the wash. Dylan steps away from him, startled. 

Filip puts his phone in his bag and zips it closed with force, turning. “You have to stop—you can’t...you have to stop doing that.”

“I’m...not doing anything,” Dylan says.

“No, I don’t know—I feel so—” Filip stammers. Finally levels his gaze and remembers the way this deal with Dylan is like a disease he keeps catching through proximity, like radiation poisoning, a thing with radius. He can’t be in this room any longer or he might die. Filip shuts his mouth, shoves his keys in his pocket, shakes his head, and walks out.

He makes it past the tape room before he hears light footsteps jogging behind him. “Wait,” Dylan says.

Filip waits. Turns around.

“Whatever I did, I’m sorry.” He pauses, like he was expecting Filip to have interrupted him already. “Let’s put water under the bridge.”

Filip grabs Dylan’s wrist. Grips just below the heel of his hand with two fingers and his thumb, feeling Dylan’s heartbeat, pulse, pulse, pulse. Pace picking up. They stare at each other. Filip tilts his chin up, feeling—defiant, maybe, or lurid. A little sharp. The tendon over Dylan’s radial artery flexes beneath Filip’s palm as he pulls his hand away. 

Filip doesn’t have to say anything, but he’s going to. “Stop it. You’re making me feel stupid, acting like this, when you—when I—”

“When I what?”

Filip pressed his mouth into a hard line. It irritates him; the way everything seems both pointed and vague at once, directed at Dylan but unclear in the particulars. He chews on his lip. “Nothing.”

“Not nothing.”

Filip closes his eyes and inhales through his nose, trying to get a hold of himself. A few members of the dismantling crew pass through the perpendicular hall, pushing carts full of glazed Pistons plywood. Filip ducks into the nearest doorway to find himself staring at the exam table in the trainer's room, all dark save for light filtering under the door and the hazy glow of a digital clock. Filip blinks as his eyes adjust, willing his heart rate to slow.

The door clicks closed for only a moment before Dylan’s following him in. He reaches for Filip’s wrist in return, thumb pressing down hard on the artery, dull throbbing pain counting out a fast paced beat in his arm. Filip uses the leverage to haul Dylan closer, bent arm wedged between their chests.

“Fil,” Dylan says, hushed. He moves as if to put his hands on Filip’s shoulders, then stops halfway, balling them up into fists, leaving them hovering in the empty space. “Zadina. We can’t. I can’t.”

They’re so close, Filip can smell his aftershave. He noses forward, eyes limpid in the dark. “Why?”

“Because I know what it’s like,” Dylan says. “I know because I’ve been—I’ve been new to the league and young and—”

“And what?” Filip presses, nosing even closer, though Dylan still keeps his hands away.

“And in over my head with someone I looked up to.”

“You’re twenty-three. I’m not some kid.”

“I know you’re not.”

“You’re not the captain,” Filip says. It’s a low blow, but he says it and keeps going. “You’re not using me. I’m the one who’s asking. You wouldn’t be gaining anything, you know? There’s no advantage to take. Am I really so bad?”

“You know that’s not—”

“Then just—I know you can feel it. I know you do.” Filip feels like he’s one colossal sunburn, all his skin stretched too tight, stinging and peeling. “You make me like this. You.”

Dylan sets his hands on Filip’s hips, looking down at them, almost curiously. His fingertips press lightly into the small of Filip’s back through the paper thin fabric of his t-shirt, thumbs at the hard jut of his pelvic bones. Filip touches Dylan high on either side of his ribcage, sliding his palms down to his waist, dragging him closer. Inches them together towards the relationship they’ve been orbiting. 

Filip leans his weight back against the edge of the exam table, the end of it hitting him just under the ass. Dylan’s face swims closer, but Filip backs out of it, jittery. Instead he slides his arms around Dylan’s back until they are chest to chest, finally feeling his whole body without anything in the way. He slips a hand up the back of Dylan’s shirt, presses their temples together, chin on Dylan’s shoulder.

Dylan cards a hand up through Filip’s hair, ticklish at the nape of his neck. He tugs on it, strands caught between his fingers. “You need a haircut,” he says quietly, breath hot against the shell of Filip’s ear.

Filip goes up onto his toes and works his way up onto the table. He drags Dylan between his seated knees, tightening the embrace. “I don’t need anything.” He touches his mouth to the hinge of Dylan’s jaw, then sits back to look at him with dark eyes. “Just tell me what you want.”

“There’s nothing,” Dylan says, hushed. “I’d rather—for you.”

“That’s very noble of you,” Filip replies, equally quiet. “But I can take care of myself. If you let me I can even take care of you.”

Dylan laughs, wry, but his pupils are blown in the dark. “There are too many people around for you to be talking to me like that.”

Filip buries his face in Dylan’s trapezius and huffs out a breath. He smells like dove soap, artificial cucumber, fresh and sweet. Filip almost wants to bite the muscle, but he just turns his head and kisses Dylan’s neck instead, fingers creeping along his clavicle.

Dylan rubs a hand up Filip’s back to his nape. “We shouldn’t stay,” he eventually says. He puts a palm on Filip’s face to lift his head, gripping his chin, bringing them eye to eye again. Goes to kiss him, then aborts, leaning but not quite enough.

“We shouldn’t go, either,” Filip manages. 

“Jesus,” Dylan says, his voice low and tight. “Are you hard?”

Filip lays back on the exam table, letting his thighs fall apart, scrubbing his hands over his face. Nerves are coiling low in his gut, his spine fuzzing out like television static. “Yes,” he says, sitting up again, leaning back on his hands, staring at the ceiling. He can’t get enough oxygen. He makes himself look at Dylan. “Are you?”

“Fil,” Dylan says again, then nothing else. 

Filip presses his forehead against Dylan’s, but doesn’t dare close the distance any farther. He looks at his own knee against Dylan’s hip. Watches shadows pass under the door. The proximity is brutal.

“I want to suck you off,” Filip says, quiet but shameless, tugging on Dylan’s forearms.

Dylan puts his hands down on either side of Filip’s hips, bending slightly at the waist, head down, back bowed. Filip can see his shoulders and the expanse of his back like rolling hills, the collar of his crewneck lifting away from his skin. 

“I’ll do it right here,” Filip whispers. He presses his face into Dylan’s hair, smelling that weird smell everyone’s body has close up. Touches his biceps, his shoulders. Dylan’s breath puffs out hot against his chest through the thin fabric of his shirt. “You sit, I get on the floor.”

“Fil, come on,” Dylan says, standing up again. He’s in his usual post-practice getup; sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and it’s not hard for Filip to see that he’s not the only one feeling affected. 

“Okay, not that. Let’s just—let’s just—”

Dylan shakes his head. 

Filip knows that if patience is a virtue, he’s probably not destined for sainthood. He couldn’t wait to get drafted, then couldn’t wait to make the top line, to get called up, to play ten games, to score, to win, play a full twenty minutes. In Grand Rapids, the coaches had to train him to stop trying to get rid of the puck as fast as possible, to just hold on to something for another second longer, meaning; Filip isn’t entirely sure he’s capable of waiting for this. 

“I don’t know how to do this,” Dylan says, anxious. “It's just—a bad idea. If it goes wrong, we’d fuck up...we’d fuck up this whole team. Half the time you’re on my line. We’re on the powerplay and the penalty kill. We’re both gonna be here for a long time. It’s not that I don’t...I just—we can’t.”

“We can. It will be good. I promise. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can.”

Silence constricts the room, suffocating. Dylan turns, walks like he’s going to leave, but he just puts his back against the door and crosses his arms. The distance makes his vision blur.

Filip feels his face burning, his eyes stinging, all his shit on meltdown mode. Can’t look away. 

“Can you go?” Filip says. 

“I’ll go soon.” Dylan doesn’t move.

Filip shakes his head. He can hear the tag stitched to the back of his own shirt crinkling.

“You’re right,” Dylan says finally. “I’ll go right now.”

  
  


Filip sleeps like shit that night.

In the five minute drive to the rink he works retroactively though the first few stages of grief, lands on anger like water rushing towards a drain. 

The frustration builds, layers upon layers. He carries it through practice, takes it out and parades it around on some seriously nasty slap-shots—nearly takes Bernier’s head off fifteen minutes into drills with one that just barely glances past the meeting of his helmet and shoulder. “Sorry,” he huffs, skating by. “Didn’t mean to go so nearside.”

Bernier taps him lightly on the shin pads. “Try that on Hellyebuck tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Filip intones, half a grin tugging up on his face, skating backwards to get in line again.

When Blashill herds them into passing drills, Joe skates over to pair up, giving Filip the eye. 

“What got into you?” he asks the moment he’s sure no one will hear, laughing lightly. “You look crazy.”

“Slept well,” Filip lies.

“Liar,” Joe calls easily. Passes smooth and flat, toe to toe, all tape.

“Yeah.”

“Moritz says you need to get laid.”

“Well,” Filip says gravely.

“Ugh. Do you?”

“No.” Another pass with a clean path. Sly smile. “Is he offering?”

Joe settles the puck and gives him a dead look. 

“I’m kidding! I’m kidding.”

Joe sends him an ugly pass that turns on its side and rolls, snorting. “Your humor is messed up.”

“Mo would laugh.”

“Well he’s wack too!”

Blashill comes sauntering over, observing, so they both go back to doing the drill in silence, well behaved, trying not to snicker. When Blashill trails away again, Filip stands up a little straighter. Joe looks at him like, _spill it, seriously._

Filip puts on his most convincing face. Says: “I’m fine, don’t worry about it. I am just feeling a different energy.”

“Scrimmage, boys!” calls Blashill. Bobby pats Filip’s head as he skates by, heading for the water bottles at the bench. Robby taps his ass with the toe of his stick, skating backwards and grinning. 

Filip plays the best scrimmage of his life. 

Dylan isn’t even skating this morning. 

Practice sucks.

  
  


Filip just wants to whip Jets’ ass. He gets his gear on faster than usual and then sits in his stall, staring at the logo in the center of the floor, bouncing a leg with high-strung, feverish energy. Lindy is making faces at him from across the locker room that say, _YOU’RE FREAKING PEOPLE OUT_ , and also, _IF SOMEONE SLIPPED YOU BATH SALTS JUST SAY SOMETHING MAN_.

Filip makes a face back that says _I SWEAR I’M NOT ON BATH SALTS_. _WHY IS THAT ALWAYS YOUR FIRST THOUGHT._

Moritz catches them having a silent conversation, takes one look at him, and winks, Cheshire smile. Filip tries to trip him up with his stick, but Mo just steps gracefully over it, delighted.

Blashill pokes his head in the door. “Warm ups,” he orders. “Let’s go!”

Hronek gives him a smack on the back of the head as they shuffle out into the corridor, anxious for the rink.

Filip skates it out real pretty; does all his crossovers, clean and neat, pivots, skates backwards, cutting long swells into the ice. He keeps his distance so that when they all circle back and take shots on Greiss, he’s never in a line with Dylan. By the time they step out onto the ice again for puck drop, Filip’s body feels like a lock clicking into place. If he’s a switch, he’s _on_ tonight. Even the far off knowledge that they’re going to lose can’t settle him.

His passes are all tape to tape and hard as hell, filling the rink with satisfying cracking noises every time they meet carbon fiber. The game’s got rhythm, the hits have acoustics. They’re going stride for stride with the Jets; for every lost goal, they scrape one back.

They time a line change just right and Filip gets the stretch pass out from the backboards, up against two dark blue jerseys. He evades the first the best he can, coming in too hot to make an attempt at aiming for a goal.

He makes the drop pass, no-look, between the legs, then gets cross checked, falls and careens into the boards behind the net, his back slamming into the steel. When his vision stops rattling, the goal horn is blaring, the period is over, and Dylan is standing there at the edge of the crease, giving him this—look. Filip squints up at the replay on the big screens; the way Dylan lifts the puck up over Hellyebuck’s pad is almost frantic, like Filip sent it too hard to handle, but the aim is dead on. He gets to his feet and skates over, knocking his fist against Dylan’s without saying anything.

Dylan smiles at him strangely, like he told a joke but forgot to laugh at the end of it. “Slow down,” he says, one corner of his mouth tugging like it’s tied to a puppeteer’s string.

 _Speed up_ , Filip wants to say, but he bites his tongue. Hronek jumps onto his back from behind, shaking him around gleefully. All the while, Filip holds Dylan’s gaze.

  
  


They don’t win. Of course they don’t; there’s four games left in the losing streak Filip knows they’re currently heading into. He’s still feeling jittery and amped as the final buzzer sounds, the noise bordering on pavlovian with the way it has the tension dropping, herding them all off the ice and towards the dressing room. Dylan puts an arm around his shoulders as they glide towards the bench door, slides his gloved hand to the middle of Filip’s number _11_ to let him hop the threshold first. Filip shakes Dylan off, tugs his helmet loose with a bit of fervor, gripping it by the visor. Takes his gloves off and tucks them into his pants, hands clammy. 

The first set of doors leading to the locker room slide open and then close behind them. Filip’s wrought with this placeless sense of urgency; like ice cream he knows is about to melt all down his hand, unable to stop feeling Dylan’s presence trailing just behind him.

“Fil,” Dylan says, touching Filip’s wrist, grip loose through the kevlar. “Filip, hey, come on.”

Filip breathes through his nose, steeling himself. He turns in Dylan’s hold. Wishes he could dump a bucket of crushed ice down his jersey and just play like that. “I don’t want to do this right now.”

Dylan looks at his eyes, frowning. “I’m not trying to—”

“It was embarrassing, Dylan,” Filip says, face burning. “Being rejected like that. I'm embarrassed, okay? Stop making it worse.”

Dylan opens his mouth, then closes it. The hand still gripping his stick flexes anxiously.

Filip stares, stony. “Look,” he says. “I could love you, you know? And I’m playing better than ever, and I didn’t ruin anything, and I’m not going anywhere. Alright? So don’t tell me that I can’t. Don’t tell me not to.” He eases his wrist out of Dylan’s fingers and steps into the locker room, head down, and starts stripping out of his gear.

Dylan takes another minute to enter the room. Filip watches him though he doesn’t mean to, almost wishing he could make a scene.

Givani sits in the wrong stall just to be next to him. “You okay, man?” he says, concerned. He gestures vaguely to Filip’s back, miming the impact of him sliding into the boards earlier. “That fall looked like it hurt.” 

  
  


“That leaves Larks with Z,” Blashill says. 

Filip blinks, vision spotting from sleep. Joe flicks him in the back of the head as he shuffles past him down the aisle with his bag. “Morning, sleeping beauty,” he says. Outside, it’s dark, just past sunset, the sky more purple than bluish-black.

Filip gives Joe the finger and rubs the heels of his palms in his eyes, suppressing a yawn. He’s got an ache in his neck from leaning against the window of the bus. And his leg is asleep, television static up the kneecap. He waits for the feeling to clear while the team files out onto the pavement, the bus’ frame shaking with the shifting weight.

Dylan puts his hand atop the headrest of the empty seat next to Filip. “C’mon,” he says, tipping his head towards the open doors. “Gotta unload. We’re roommates.”

Filip glares at him.

“You were sleeping,” Dylan says. “What could I say?”

Filip bites his tongue. He’s no longer angry enough to pretend that Dylan could stand up and announce that he didn’t want to room together without raising all kinds of suspicion, some misplaced, the rest...not so much. Filip takes his bag down from the overhead.

Dylan smiles narrowly at him. “I can hang in Bert’s room for a while if you want.”

“It’s fine,” Filip says, tugging the strap higher up his shoulder. “Really. No big deal.” He steps out in front of Dylan, shuffling down the aisle and down the four steps to the pavement. 

In the elevator, Filip stares at their warped reflections in the smooth brass, smudgy, stretched like a funhouse. The numbers in the panel ascend to eight, and then the doors are opening, and Dylan’s stepping out onto the hideous carpet, struggling to get the key cards out from the paper sleeve. He struggles equally with the door, and Filip watches, amused. 

Inside, Filip falls face first into the pillows. The last ounce of anger he had on the bus has already melted away. 

“You wanna meet some of the guys at the pool?” Dylan asks eventually. “Robby’s going.”

“I’m too tired. Tell everyone I’m retiring. I’ll become...a receptionist, somewhere. Just say ‘hello?’ and press numbers on a telephone all day.”

“You’d make a terrible receptionist,” Dylan says. “You’re too impolite.”

“I’m civil enough,” Filip says, rolling over onto his back. He’s hanging halfway off the low mattress, feet planted on the ground. Dylan lifts a brow. “Whatever. Like you’d make a better receptionist than me.”

“So competitive,” Dylan drawls, collapsing back on the bed next to him. “Must take all your energy. No wonder you’re so tired.”

Filip stretches, arms up over his head and yawns. “Well. What about you?”

“What about me?”

Filip turns his head to look at Dylan’s profile. “What would you be?”

Dylan crosses his arms over his chest, scratching absently at one elbow, thinking. “I think it’s hockey for me, or nothing,” Dylan says eventually. “I want to be the best, or nothing.”

“Me too,” says Filip. “Watch, I will be better than even you. You won’t be able to stand it.”

“You’ll have to get faster, then. Better catch up.”

“I’ll be the fastest thing you’ve ever seen,” Filip says. “Blink, you miss me.” Dylan doesn’t reply. Filip stares at him; too affected to be mocking, eyes lake-ice blue. His nerves coil in his gut at the silence. He snaps his fingers, smiling lopsidedly. “Like that.”

Dylan turns, too, to look in return. He reaches and grabs Filip by the belt, drags him up and over, hand trailing down his thigh when Filip doesn’t resist, going along with it. Filip sits up, knees on either side of Dylan’s hips, and Dylan follows, his weight resting back on the heels of his hands. 

The angle is slightly familiar—the slight height it gives Filip, things shifting into place, knowing the shape of the lock before anyone’s made the key. Makes Filip think of the red glass in a short hallway.

He holds Dylan’s gaze, refusing to move first. The ball’s been out of his court for a while now. Dylan levels his stare, then drops his head down, sighing heavily. 

“Agh, you’re mean,” Filip says, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Dylan always knows exactly how far to go and exactly when to stop. Like flying first class. Filip rolls off him, flattening himself to the mattress again.

“I’m not,” Dylan says easily. 

Filip’s focus skips sideways, away from him. He’s right, of course. “You’re not,” Filip agrees. “You’re really nice. It’s awful.”

That makes Dylan laugh. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to be a worse person.”

Filip stares at the white stucco on the ceiling, heartbeat in his stomach. He really is tired.

Dylan places a hand on Filip’s knee, palm clammy, but hot. “I’ll go to Tyler’s,” he says.

Filip reaches out, toying with the hem of Dylan’s t-shirt at his lower back. “I’m going to shower. You should come.” Fingertips along the spine.

Dylan gives him the side eye over his shoulder, but goosebumps rise on his arms, laughing, nervy. “It’s a very small shower.”

Filip grins, all teeth. “I don’t mind.”

Dylan shakes his head again, but he sits for a long time. “I’m going to Tyler’s,” he repeats, eventually. 

  
  


Shit always goes haywire when they play the Devils. The game hasn’t got an iota of flow, whistle after whistle—because apparently, they have beef. Filip doesn’t know. He was out with an ankle injury when it all went down last season, something with Robby, because it’s always Robby, which means Tyler got involved, which means everyone is involved, and there’s some deal with Hughes. Or something.

What Filip does know is that every shift is teetering on turning seriously ugly, and he’s going to come out of this with major bruising all up his sides. If the refs started calling boarding now, they’d never make it to twenty minutes, let alone sixty. They lag behind, one-nothing, and hold there.

Relief only comes when the power play lands in their lap off a debatable high sticking call. Blashill shoves him off the bench and onto the ice to take up the left, and he jostles outside the face off circle with some winger until Dylan sends the puck cleanly back to the point. They play keep away too long, disconnected, waste their opportunities, and get called in for the line change. Dylan eyes him warily on the bench like he thinks he's being conspicuous.

Filip can’t tell if he’s being targeted or if they’re all getting dog-walked equally, but it's starting to piss him off. He takes an elbow to the mouth, tastes blood, and scowls at all six feet of Nico Hischier as the buzzer goes off to signal the end of the period.

The team lumbers back to the locker room listlessly, sore already. Zadina spits blood and saliva onto the ice, then climbs over the half wall at the bench. The bottom half of his face is numb, and he can’t feel his front teeth. 

Dylan stops him in the tunneled hallway. “Are you okay?”

“Probably,” says Filip, wiping his chin. “Are you? Where is the fire under your feet? Play like it’s the Jets again. Why don’t you pass to me?”

Dylan stares at him, affronted. “Let me see your teeth,” he says, diverting. “You have a split lip.” Filip doesn’t oblige, waiting for Dylan’s real response. 

“It's not just me out there,” Dylan says, firm. 

“I never said it was just you. But I think you don’t want to show favor to me, so you avoid me instead. And in doing so you make it just as obvious.”

“That's not what I’m doing.” Filip stares at Dylan long enough that he shifts uneasily, the anger all dissipated, nothing to lose with it all out on the floor. Dylan course corrects. “It's not what I mean to be doing.”

“Oh my god,” Filip says. His mouth tastes like iron. “You were serious.”

“What?”

Filip bites his lip, suppressing his smile, winces a little at the sting. “You seriously believe that being afraid to screw up the team is a legitimate reason to push me away like this.”

Dylan stares at him. “Of course I do,” he says. “You think I—lied? Made something up?”

“I—you—we’re terrible,” Filip says. Laughs, suddenly, surprising himself. _Ha!_ “A terrible team. It doesn’t even matter.”

“It matters,” Dylan says, incredulous. “It matters a lot.”

“It doesn’t,” Filip says. “So what, say we screw up the team. Okay. Where will they send us? Who wants to trade with the Wings? Scared you’ll have to go play better hockey? But not even that. We are already—we are already like this. Moritz knows. Don’t pretend you’ve said nothing to Bertuzzi. The team is not screwed up. Only you and me.”

“You said it was f—”

“Yes, fine, it's fine. But then I wonder who are you protecting? By running away from me, I mean.”

“I’m not—”

“I’m still talking. You are only protecting you. And I know you are not selfish. So I think actually, you are afraid of something else. You think you will fail me? No, maybe you think I will outgrow you? That you’ll be gone, or you’ll show me your cards and I won’t want to come play?” Filip feels a wave of affection crash over him. “I didn’t realize it before.”

Dylan opens his mouth to deny it, but nothing comes out. “I—” he manages, then stops.

“Whatever,” Filip says tiredly. Suddenly he can feel his skates underneath him again. “This is the best place to be the worst, you know? I don’t like it when you’re a coward.” It’s hard to talk because his mouth keeps filling with blood. He swallows, though it makes him a little queasy. “Coach is gonna be pissed if we miss the game plan. Now come here. Check my teeth.”

Dylan passes to Filip.

It’s flat and clean as all hell, slipping just under the stick of a Devils defender, right outside the crease. Filip settles the puck, fighting off the backcheck, and winds up for the shot. Dylan screens Blackwood. The goal horn goes off, sensor flashing, and Filip catches a crosscheck in the mouth as he finally falls, half glove, half carbon fiber. 

Filip runs his tongue over his gums, spits a cracked off piece of his canine onto the ice. Stands up again, grabbing the nearest Devils player by the sleeve, grinning mad when he feels another one shove him in the back. Tuzzi gets involved, and then Hronek is there, pulling a defenseman away from him. Dylan’s already skating over to break up the brewing fight, somehow fond beneath the sternness. 

Filip wants to grab Dylan by the collar, tell him, today we will lose, tomorrow, too, and we won't score again for what feels like a lifetime, and this season will be terrible, and I hate your guts, and you were right seven years from now, against my will I love you. Filip’s so goddamn sick of this—ignorance was seriously bliss. 

Dylan gets intercepted by another Devils player, shoved sideways, jersey caught up in a gloved fist. Everything has gone wrong in just the right way. The lights suddenly feel like heat rays, making Filip squint. 

Fuck it. “I really must be crazy,” he says to Nico. Filip shakes off a glove, and punches Hischier square in the mouth.

“You can wear a full shield for a bit if you want,” the dentist says. He can't seem to meet Filip's gaze more than looking at the ghoulish green and purple bruise circling his eye like a wax seal. “But practically, it’s not any more sensitive than a normal tooth, so it shouldn’t really give you trouble.”

“That’s okay,” Filip says. The crown is perfectly smooth and feels a little strange in his mouth, like a glass marble. “This is good for now. One day I will be back, probably with less teeth.”

The dentist laughs. Filip is always forgetting his name. “Fair enough,” he says. “Sorry for scheduling this so early. Your medical staff made it sound much worse over the phone. I thought it would take longer, and that you’d need an implant, or a post, at least.”

“They are melodramatic,” Filip says, sitting up. The majority of the blood was just from the cut, but even he can admit that surface level, it looked pretty gnarly. Detroit was an icebox when the team finally got back from the road, but the schedule didn’t slow. Filip slept for one night of respite, then got in his car early enough that the plows hadn’t made it to Woodward yet, and the street was a speed-skating track, wipers frozen to his windshield.“Last season made them paranoid. We have morning practice, anyway.” Filip is pretty sure half the team is going to be late, or not show. “I’ll just hang around until it starts.”

  
  


Filip skates in long arcs, half-assing shots into the top corners of the net. There’s pucks out on the ice in erratic clusters. He turns when he hears the bench door squeak open, the faint click of the lock.

Dylan stands there with the door of the half-boards open, one hand on each side of it. 

The morning staff wouldn’t let Filip turn all the lights on, so he’s a flat wash of blues and grays in the half dark. Filip shuffles the puck, forehand, backhand, takes the weakest shot in the world. When he skates over and skids to a stop, he sends a small shower of ice over Dylan’s shoes and ankles. Dylan keeps his hands deep in the pockets of his sweats.

“I asked Veleno,” he says simply, speaking first. “He said you’d be here.”

“That jerk,” Filip manages, no bite. He looks behind himself at the rink, surface covered in skate marks. Breathes out evenly. Meets Dylan’s eye. Tries for something patient, something normal. “Wanna hit some one-t’s?”

“No.” Dylan nearly smiles but he fights it down. “I, uh.” He’s chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Look. You never asked me about face offs.”

Filip blinks. “Huh?”

Dylan stares at his shoes. “Back, before we played the Pens, before you missed that optional practice. You never actually asked me about face offs.”

Filip screws his eyebrows together. “What does that have to do w—”

The grave face Dylan makes cuts him off. “I just uh, wanted to spend time with you. And what I said back...then, about knowing what it’s like—I didn’t want to...I didn’t want to be that person for you, the one who gets you all messed up. But, y’know, helping with dumb face off stuff. I figured I could at least have that. Obviously I didn’t do a great job resisting everything else. And I guess now I’m sort of understanding the other side of it. How hard it is, I mean. To only have that.” The floods start clicking on, right to left, big empty vault sounds filling the arena with the burning white light.

"It's not your job to decide what I want," Filip says, just staring. He can't feel his own legs beneath him. "Or what I can have. Not everything is your job."

"I just—sometimes—think that it is." Dylan moves to pinch the bride of his nose stressfully, then winces when he remembers its tender and half bruised. "I feel," stop, start, "Protective of you."

Filip goes all glass blown and hot. "I don't need you to do any of that," he says, no edge. Tries to picture the Dylan that was new to the league, and young, and knew what this was like. Wonders what it was that he was so desperate to hear. "I just want to play Red Wings hockey with you."

"I only—hoped that the weight would never fall to you like it had to me." Dylan's staring at the bright red haze of the practice rink, all the scuff marks and scratched paint along the boards. "But the truth is, I want to burden you. Selfishly, maybe, I want you to have what I had."

"So you're not perfect," Filip says easily, expression softening. "I'm relieved."

"Do you know what I thought, your first game here?" Dylan says suddenly. "I thought you were familiar. Like I recognized you, somehow."

"Yes," says Filip. He can't decide if he regrets only shoving his skates over his feet, wonders if he'd feel less exposed with a kit on, with the visor glare obscuring his eyes. "I'm gathering that now." 

Dylan shifts his weight from one foot to the other, looking very much like he wishes he was in full gear right now, had a puck or helmet strap to screw with. His stare wont stick. “I know you feel led on and rejected by me. But, eventually, you hold the carrot, and I’m the one chasing you.”

“So." Eyes to the paint, then up again. "I never asked you about face offs." 

Dylan nods. “You never asked me about face offs.” He scratches at the side of his neck, meets his gaze for half a second. Dylan's got a mean black eye from the Devils game, yellowed at the edges. “Jerk. I could love you.”

Filip just—he can’t speak any more, can’t think. He feels time collapsing onto him, exerting a kind of gravity. He takes a deep breath, striding closer to the boards. Even in his skates, Dylan, standing on the threshold, is still taller. Filip doesn't do anything but press forehead against the hollow at the base of his windpipe, staring down at the ice beneath them, flushed.

Dylan lays a hand flat across the back of Filip’s neck, playing with his baby hairs. He’s in need of a clean shave across the nape, and Dylan slides his palm to one side of Filip’s face, his skin warm in the chill of the rink. Filip shakes his head in a small way, gripping the fabric of Dylan’s sweatshirt.

“Z,” Dylan says. “Filip Zadina.” He leans back precariously, trying to see him, but Filip pulls him upright again, keeping his face down. He smells like dryer sheets, and cold air, somehow. Like in winter, when the sky is just—clear. Dylan’s chin is resting at the crown of Filip’s head. “You can look up any time you want.” 

“Don’t ever break your clavicle,” Filip says quietly against Dylan’s throat.

“What?” starts Dylan, and then Filip is picking his head up and kissing him.

Dylan is still warm from the heat in his car, and he doesn’t react with any level of surprise at all. He eases Filip’s stick out of his hand and lets it clatter to the ice, leaning forward more insistently. 

Filip snakes his arms around Dylan’s shoulders, hauling him closer, forcing him to step down precariously onto the rink in his sneakers. The door swings shut behind him, and Filip crowds him against the steel, pressed together from hip to chest. He digs the toe of his skate blade into the ice so he doesn’t slide away, all his weight pitched forward. Dylan licks into his mouth and lays a firm hand across Filip’s lower back, drawing out a soft sound that forces Filip to break the kiss and huff to save face. Filip taps his fingers against Dylan’s cheek, dismissive. Doesn’t dare look at him, suddenly feeling all 200 feet of ice spread out hard and glittering behind him.

Filip drifts backwards, slow, blades cutting long wavelengths. “Go get your skates on.”

Dylan rolls his eyes. “Fil—”

“When are you going to stop calling me that?”

Dylan smiles. “Tomorrow.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> 1171...my city now. 
> 
> feel free to leave a long and unhinged comment, ive been sitting on this thing for months!!!!!!
> 
> p.s. im on twitter @crosschecked!


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